One of the biggest costs involved in treating water is cleaning the filters that purify the water. Microbes in the water agglomerate on the surface of the filters in a process called biofouling. This clogs the filters, requiring costly cleaning. New research at Duke University could help prevent this clogging through the use of a carbon nanoparticle called the "buckyball."

We've all been told to turn off the lights when leaving the room, and now University of Michigan researchers have proposed a similar plan, called PowerNap, for the world's data centers. The results of their work have been summarized in the APLOS 2009 proceedings.

The results from a recent clinical study suggested the promising ability of "functional" yogurts that have been strengthened with antibodies to prevent and treat stomach ulcers and gastritis. The study was conducted by a group of Japanese researchers at Kyoto Women's University and the results were recently presented at the 237th meeting of the American Chemical Society at Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

A team of scientists from Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom has recently built the first robot to "independently discover new scientific knowledge." Their results were recently published in the journal Science.

Picture this: You're sitting on a grassy field in the Savanna, watching the sun set while the birds chirp around you and a cool spring breeze tickles your face. Then you turn on the TV to catch the evening news. Sound impossible? Maybe not.

Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto and Chemical and Veterinary Investigation Lab in Karlsruhe (CVUA), Germany stated in a review published online in Addiction on 17th March 2009 that current risk assessments of acetaldehyde-induced cancer do not accurately portray risks associated with the disease. They also stated that alcoholic beverages carry the highest risk of acetaldehyde-induced cancer.

As a 2nd place winner of the 2009 JYI Research Department Award, I was privileged to travel with the executive board of JYI to the city of Chicago, the site of the Annual American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) Conference. The theme of the conference, "Our Planet and Its Life: Origins and Futures," was displayed everywhere across the conference and played a critical component in many of the conference's lectures, topical seminars, and radio broadcasts.

Why do domesticated dogs come in so many different shapes and colours, while wolves appear to be much similar to each other? Scientists have long theorized that humans had something to do with this increased phenotypic diversity within the species, and now researchers from the Universities of Uppsala and Durham have confirmed one piece of the puzzle in a study published in PLoS Genetics in March.

Over the next twenty years, the financial burden on the U.S. government to provide quality healthcare to its aging population is expected to rise to $4.2 trillion (U.S. Centers, 2006). One way the U.S. government could reduce the financial impact of this aging demographic is through funding research into the causes of aging such as telomeres. This work presents a method for calculating lifespan based on the rate of telomere shortening.

Flavonoids are natural antioxidants derived from plants and commonly found in foods, such as fruits and vegetables, with the ability to sequester free radicals. Quercetin, part of a subclass of flavonoids called flavonols, has received considerable attention because of its overwhelming presence in foods. Quercetin is believed to protect against several degenerative diseases by preventing lipid peroxidation. However, the degree and method of quercetin's absorption in vivo has yet to be absolutely determined. It is thought that the predominant glucoside form is converted to the aglycone, which is then converted to one of several quercetin metabolites.